


Magic Words

by afteriwake



Series: Summer Under The Stars - May / June / July / August 2017 [9]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Badass Finn, Badass Poe Dameron, Badass Rey, Bodyguard Poe Dameron, Childhood Friends, Competent Finn, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Different Magic, Epic Friendship, Evil Magical Creatures, F/M, Finn & Poe Are The Related Ones, Finn-centric, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Magic-User Finn, Magic-User Rey, Magic-Users, Magical Accidents, Magical Bond, Male Friendship, Neighbors, On the Run, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Finn (Star Wars), Prince Finn, Princes & Princesses, Secret Identity, Secrets, political coups
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Valo Asher is one of the few remaining members of the royal family in his kingdom, Kasdan: a lowly prince so far down the pecking order he may as well not even be a prince by his nation's standards. He escaped across the sea with his friend and protector Poe Dameron in an effort to hide himself until some point when either he could safely return to Kasdan or would have to take on a completely new life outside of the only home he has ever known. Adopting the name Finn, he attempts to settle in in the cold northern kingdom of Arndt but finds it a place where he doesn't fit.Until he hears his neighbor, a girl who simply goes by Rey, say his name. Hisadoptedname.And then he finds his life is uprooted again as the two of them and Poe go on an adventure to discover the true depth of the powers both he and Rey possess and, hopefully, return his kingdom to its rightful rulers.





	Magic Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So this fic was requested by my good friend **sideofrawr** from a prompt (“ _my country’s going through some issues so i’m here in hiding and you’re a civilian who lives in the same apartment complex as me_ ”) and for some reason I felt compelled to write chapter 1 all of a sudden. This is definitely not a canon compliamt Srtar Wars fic, as it is very much an AU, and at the bottom of each chapter will be notes about the various things I use for reference in the fic (for example, Finn's kingdom and the one where the story starts are named after two people involved in "The Force Awakens," producer Lawrence Kasdan and co-writer Michael Arndt, and Finn's name references the word eight and the concept of lucky names, like lucky number 7, therefore meaning 87).

Valo Asher always kept his head down. Usually wore a hooded sweater, tried his best to blend in with the university crowd in the town. This was a very metropolitan place for being so…

Not home.

It wasn’t until he got into his apartment that he allowed himself to take a deep breath and simply relax. There was safety here, or at least a bit of it. Running away from a bloody coup, trying to make sure at least some of his line survived, that was not anything a Prince should go through. And he wasn’t even the Crown Prince! That had been his brother, who had been raised in a different part of the palace, someone he only saw on state occasions.

Hell, he wasn’t even a _full_ prince as far as most of the country was concerned. He wasn’t a bastard, not really, but by the complicated marriage system his country had he might as well be. A wife from every village, regardless of their race, had been meant to unify the nation. And it had, but he should have known sentiments would be against him as his father had truly loved his mother, even though she was not “royal” enough. The fact his skin from the neck down was tattooed with glowing sigils from an unknown source…

Well, the ugliness that permeated the world would permeate any kingdom eventually, he supposed. He saw it often enough with the way the “settlers” had sneered at him. There had been hope that his country could remain free, but no, the settlers had other ideas.

It all seemed far more barbaric than most people thought his country was. How little the world knew of Kasdan.

But that was all in the past. His mother had escaped, but where she was, he did not know. Whether his father had survived, he was unsure. His brother was a political prisoner. And many turned their eyes away as it was just another humanitarian crisis. He didn’t understand how people could watch other people suffer; while his country had had problems, they were all relatively well taken care of. He was not one of the better-known princes so he traveled through the small country often, spent time with those who lived there. There had been no word of revolt whispered until the settlers from the cold mountains had come.

He had been sent across the sea for his safety, to the small island kingdom where his father had had allies, with only his childhood friend and now bodyguard Poe Dameron with him. The first thing Poe had done was redirect their course from the capital to a small town in the middle of the country with no warning, saying there was no clue who could be trusted. And that was how they should live their life now: on edge.

And that was why he kept his face as veiled as he could with hooded sweaters pulled close against his skin.

It wasn’t even as though being among people of different races, different nationalities was an altogether large shock for him, but the cold had been something he was not used to. He was from warm lands, where sand and spices flowed in abundance, and everything here seemed so cold and bland. He missed his home. He missed the sun and warmth. He missed his family and he missed the little things he knew would remind him of home.

He had had to leave most of it behind, save the one thing his father had pressed into his hands before he was smuggled out of the royal compound: the book of spells, passed from king to prince for more generations than anyone could remember. It should have gone to his brother but had gone to him instead. He wondered why, but Poe did not know and there was no one else he could ask.

And so he would spend his days studying the texts the people of this town used at their university, trying not to draw attention to himself though he was striking in his way, and then in the privacy of his home he would learn the secrets he should never have learned, if things had gone the way they should, but he was trusted with by his father.

And that was his world now. It was not a world he would have willingly chosen to inhabit. It was not the world he wanted, for himself or his friend or those he held dear who had been scattered to the winds, dispersed to the four corners of the map.

But little did he know that there was, so very close, a woman who would bring warmth and light back into his life, and it would all begin with one word:

 _Finn_.

**Author's Note:**

>   * While not mentioned just yet, the settlers who staged the coup are not human, but appear humanlike. They practise a dark magic and wanted the book mentioned in this chapter, and the coup was just a chance to seize it. Think of them as the unseeleighe in Irish mythology, like a collection of creatures of all shapes and sizes who Finn initially thinks dislike him because of one aspect (his tattoos, as most appear to glow a sickly green-tinted pale glow and his tattoos are multicolored) but instead are more repulsed by his magical abilities, as they are purely good.
> 



End file.
